“He is charming and very handsome,” Tabitha chattered. “Very dark and mysterious.”

“Is he charming or mysterious?” Henrietta stared off at nothing, her eyes shadowed in anger. “He cannot possibly be both.”

She would not care if the man was King George himself—Henrietta was determined to despise him on sight.

“But he is both!” Tabitha insisted. “He is widowed, so there remains a sadness in his eyes, but that is nothing you cannot overcome with your light banter.”

Light banter was not something she was renowned for, despite her mother’s presumptions.

Particularly not now.

For three weeks, she had been held in her chambers, permitted only to leave for meals when escorted by Molly and only when her father was present. Henrietta knew he worried she would flee, the letters to the university arousing his suspicions about her tenfold.

And I would flee if I was not kept prisoner!

A hundred times she had considered climbing from her bedchamber windows, but where would she go? She had nowhere to run to. And so, instead, she fantasized about this new husband of hers taking one look at her and running for the hills.

“I cannot be meant to marry someone like this!” With that, he would throw up his hands and storm from the altar, leaving Henrietta to suppress a smirk. Of course, indulging in make believe was childish, but he was a Marquess and the agreement to wed had already been made.

“You will like him very much, Henny,” Tabitha sat across the table and lowered her fork. “I wish your father would permit you a visit to Nightingale, if only once.”

Tabitha stared at Aaron who scowled as he chewed. He shook his head vehemently.

“No!” he growled after he swallowed the mouthful of food. “How many times must I say it? Henrietta will meet Lord Peterborough at the wedding and not a day sooner.”

“But why, Aaron? They will make for a dashing couple. What is the harm if they grow acquainted with one another before? I despise lying to them when they ask about Henrietta.”

“You lie to them?” Henrietta eyes widened. “And, for what reason?” She turned into a baited bull.

“You speak too freely, Tabitha!” he grumbled. “Mind your food.”

“Lord Peterborough asked about her again today,” Tabitha sighed. “I did tell them that you were traveling to a relative who has taken ill, but I feel that he thought me untruthful.”

Aaron’s head jerked up and he gazed at his wife.

“How? Why? Has he said something?”

“No, no,” Tabitha insisted, looking down. “I just felt that there was a way he looked at me…”

“Nonsense,” Aaron scoffed. “He suspects nothing untoward.”

“Shame that,” Henrietta muttered. She was certain Lord Peterborough wouldn’t care if he learned she was being held hostage until their wedding.

He certainly is not apt to come and rescue me on some armored horse of white.

Maybe she’d have a different fantasy this very evening when she returned to her chambers.

“Mind your tongue and your supper,” Aaron barked at them both. “I do not wish to hear another word on the matter of you going to Nightingale.”

“I have no interest in meeting him beforehand,” Henrietta offered.

“You will have a lifetime to become acquainted with him,” Aaron replied but his tone was less harsh when he saw he was not required to argue two people on the matter.

After a moment of silence, Tabitha said, “When you see Nightingale, you will believe us to reside in a cupboard”

“I do reside in a cupboard,” Henrietta muttered, but her parents ignored her. She was looking forward to minimally being apart from her father, even if Nightingale was but an hour away by carriage. Despite her mother’s boasts on the matter, was it possible her fate wouldn’t be as terrible as she had originally expected?

“May I be excused?” Suddenly, she was fatigued.

“Are you well?” Tabitha studied her daughter’s face. “You are quite waxen, Henny.”

Aaron’s eyes darted toward his daughter’s face and he, too, frowned.

“I am merely tired”

“From doing what precisely— reading all the day?”

Henrietta’s jaw tightened.

“Please? May I be excused?”

“Let her go, Aaron. She does seem pale. It will benefit no one if she falls ill before the wedding.”

“You may go,” Aaron grunted. “Ensure you rest. I will not have you remaining up until all hours of the night with your nose in a book. It is a small wonder you are tired.”

“Thank you, Father.”

She rose, running her hands along the folds of her dress before moving toward the hallway.

“Molly, attend to her,” Aaron called as he always did, but he did not need to waste his breath. The abigail was at her side already. As they walked in silence toward her chambers, Henrietta’s knees slightly buckled and reaching for the wall, she gasped.

“Miss Oliver!” Molly cried. “Are you all right?”

“I…I am fine,” Henrietta replied, straightening her body and shaking her head. She was overcome with dizziness, but it was subsiding.

“I will run for your mother…” Molly trailed off and peered at her skeptically.

“There is no need to alarm my mother,” Henrietta replied, returning her gaze. “Why do you look at me in such a way?”

“I will send for your mother after I return you to your chambers,” Molly told her. “Would you like to take my arm, Miss?”

“No,” Henrietta snapped, suddenly understanding. “I am capable of walking without aid.”

“As you wish.”

She thinks I am pretending to be sick.

Molly led the way back to her bedchambers and turned down the covers before moving to stoke the fire burning behind the hearth with another log.

“I will send for your parents,” Molly assured her, turning to leave, Henrietta’s protests falling on deaf ears.

When will I learn that I have no voice in this house? Even the servants feel they have more power than me. Will that change once I am a Marchioness?

She did not have high hopes for what the title meant, but Henrietta would be happy if she was not reprimanded by servant or ignored by an abigail. She heard the key in the lock again and sighed, sitting up in her bed.

“Darling, should I send for Dr. Slater?” Tabitha’s eyes widened with concern. “Have you a temperature?”

“Mama, I am fine. I only need rest.”

Yet it seemed that with each word she spoke, her tongue grew heavier, her words more slurred.

“Have you been imbibing, Henny?” Tabitha demanded with shock. Henrietta’s lids became blocks of lead and she could no longer keep them from closing.

“Henny? Henny, are you all right?”

“I must sleep, Mama…”

She was unsure if the words left her lips, but it was the last thing she recalled before falling into a deep, dark slumber.

She could not be certain what had woken her, but when Henrietta’s lids parted, she was enshrouded in darkness. Her head was aching, and her eyes felt gritty, and as she struggled to sit up, her body felt beaten. A touch to her forehead told her she was plagued with fever.

“Mama?” she called out, but her voice was raspy. “Molly?”

There was no one in the room but her and the dying fire. She realized she must have been asleep for hours. Slowly, she slid her legs off the side of the mattress, her muscles protesting the movement with every poppy seed she moved. She was parched, her throat filled with spools of cotton and she laboriously made her way to the water basin to pour a cup with shaking hands. Taking a long sip, her stomach lurched in protest, and for a terrifying moment, she thought she might vomit. Before she could fully entertain the notion, a sound at the window caused her to whirl and she gasped, dropping the cup from her hands in a loud crash.

There was a man in the window.

Without pausing to think, Henrietta threw her head back and screamed with the little bit of energy she possessed, but just as quickly as the face appeared, it was gone. She stumbled toward the panes, her head swimming with waves of dizziness, and pressed her face against the glass. She watched in horror as the shape of a man disappeared across the yard toward the neighboring property.

“Good Lord, Henrietta! What is the meaning of this?” Aaron roared, stalking into her chambers with anger. His face was creased with sleep, even in the shadowy light.

“There is a man! A man outside!” she choked, her breaths nearly wheezes. “At the window!”

“I see no one,” her father growled. “Are you certain?”

“Yes!” Henrietta cried. “Yes, I—”

She swooned again, only to be caught by her father’s strong arms.

“Oh dear, Aaron,” Tabitha muttered, joining them at the window. “I should have sent for Dr. Slater earlier. She is delirious with fever.”

“No!” Henrietta denied, shaking her blonde hair passionately. “I saw him! Father, please!”

“How did he look, Henrietta?” Aaron asked gruffly but he was gentle as he placed her back into the bed. “Molly, fetch her some tea and a compress for her fever, then send for Dr. Slater at once.”

“Yes, General.”

In her weakened state, Henrietta had not noticed the abigail had also entered her quarters.

“Well?” Aaron demanded of his daughter. “Was this a man you knew?”

“I…I did not see his face,” she mumbled.

“I thought you did see his face.” He was attempting, quite unsuccessfully, to keep the exasperation from his voice.

“I…I saw the profile!” Henrietta exclaimed. “A man…”

“What of his hair? His eyes?”

“I…” she thought about the man in the window. “Blue…like my own.”

“But I thought you did not see him clearly,” Aaron replied, and exasperation almost overtook her feeling of fear.

“Father, I swear it—there is a man running from the house as we speak! Why would he be looking through the windows if his intentions were pure?”

Aaron sighed and adjusted the covers about her as though she was a small child.

“Henny, when one is sick, oftentimes, one’s mind will play tricks. I believe you thought you saw such a man, but I assure you, he was not there.”

“Oh, my poor darling,” Tabitha muttered. “All will be well soon. You rest now.”

Her parents did not believe her, that much was clear, and no matter how much she tried to convince them otherwise, they remained steadfast in their belief that she was simply babbling from the fever.

“Shh,” Tabitha murmured, touching her face with cool hands. She gave her husband a worried look. “Aaron, she is rife with hot.”

He rose from the bedside where he had perched and moved toward the door. For the first time in her life, she thought she saw a glow of fear on her father’s stern face, but of course, that could not be so. Her father was an army general, one who had seen battles all throughout England and France—he did not know fear. Henrietta, however, could not shake the terror that the face in the window had brought along with it.

“I will go for Dr. Slater myself,” Aaron told his family. “Tabitha, remain with her until I return.”

He disappeared into the corridor as Tabitha turned back to her daughter, murmuring comfortingly.

“Close your eyes, darling,” she cooed. “All will be well.”

Henrietta had little choice to oblige her mother, but when she did close her lids again, the image of the wide-eyed stranger instantly surfaced in her mind’s eye.

Who was he and what did he want? She wondered, her heart thudding in her chest. She tried desperately to get a clearer picture of him in her thoughts, but it was futile, her faculties cloudy.

It does not matter, a small voice whispered at her. You will see him again.